Friends of a Feather Read Free Page A

don’t . . . you know . . .”
    It seems like everybody is silent at the same time, and my twisty-uppy feelings get twisty-uppier. I’m blushing. I can feel it.
    Then kids start talking and moving and tidying up the free-choice stations. Joseph tries to get me to look at him, which I know because we’re so good at feeling each other’s eyeball lasers. I don’t meet his gaze, though. I don’t know why for sure. It’s more than Joseph being a Wonderful Whale, but I can’t exactly say how.
    I sit down, open my desk, and take out my pen with the four different colors: red, blue, green, and black. It’s an excellent pen. It’s a lot cooler than a pretend octopus. All I have to do is decide which color I want and click the clicky thing. Then,
cha-chink
! Out pops whichever color I choose.
    I click the clicky green thing, and
cha-chink
, the green ink tip comes out. I click the red thing, and
cha-chink
, the red ink tip comes out. I
hmph
under my breath. At least my pen works.
    I open my notebook to a clean page and draw Cyber Grape. He’s supposed to be purple, but I draw him using blue. I invented him, so I can do whatever I want. Only he looks weird blue, so I open my desk again, thinking I’ll trade in my four-color pen for a purple marker.
    I do the switch and close my desk, but now I feel bad for my four-color pen. It’s not fair to make my four-color pen go,
Yay! I’m coming out of the desk! I’m going to be used!
just to put it away and make it go,
Wh-what? No! Don’t close the desk! Don’t close the de-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-k!
    But Cyber Grape is a grape, and not the green sort of grape but the purple sort of grape. And yes, I invented him, but he looks
weird
blue.
    He.
    Is.
    Supposed.
    To.
    Be.
    PURPLE.
    â€œTy? Are you working on vocabulary?” Mrs. Webber asks.
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I say, because I kind of am. I will in a second, but no one is doing their vocabulary sheet yet.
    I think about things. I drum my fingers on top of my desk. Then I give a quick nod. I open my desk and take my four-color pen back out. I put my four-color pen next to my purple marker, and I say, “Just hold on, okay? You’ll get a turn, too.”
    I say this to the pen. I say it in my head.
    I flip to the next page in my notebook. With the purple marker, I draw Cyber Grape. I draw him standing on top of the world, which is Earth, and which I draw with my four-color pen since Earth is green and blue when you’re looking at it from outer space.
    I draw more quickly. I’m on a roll. I draw all the planets, even Pluto, because I don’t think it’s fair to say out of nowhere that
Ha-ha, Pluto, you’re not a planet anymore
.
    I draw the planets out of order, though. I scatter them over the page like a handful of Skittles, with Mars in the top right corner and Saturn off to the left and Neptune squished beneath Pluto. I make Jupiter the smallest planet of all, even though I’m not dumb and I know it’s actually the biggest.
    I add stars and asteroids and space junk, which is a real thing and not something I made up. Space junk is made up of busted-up satellites, pieces of rockets that are floating around in space, and rocks that aren’t big enough to be asteroids. They’ll float around in space forever, unless they break through the atmosphere and burn up or turn into meteors.
    Except space junk is a lonely thing to think about. It makes Cyber Grape lonely, too, and I don’t know why I stuck him up in space or why I drew this stupid picture in the first place.
    I rip it out of my notebook and crumple it up. Then I rip out my first picture, the wrong one of Cyber Grape being blue, and crumple
that
one up.
    Lots of kids still haven’t settled down, and Breezie is the only person doing her vocabulary sheet. Mrs. Webber claps her hands and tells everyone to go to their seats. When they don’t, she flashes